Walt Kelly, Pragmatic Auteur

Walt Kelly, Pragmatic Auteur

Kerry D. Soper

Publisher:

University Press of Mississippi

DOI:10.14325/mississippi/9781617032844.003.0004

This chapter begins with a review of the principle of auteurship and how it applies to comics in general and Kelly’s work specifically. It then explores how Kelly’s engagement with the craft and industry of several different comic mediums such as animation, comic books, and political cartooning shaped his genre-defying comic strip. An analysis of critical business choices Kelly made at key points in his career then follows. Four facets of his career as a businessman are investigated here: his relationship with the Post-Hall syndicate, his various battles and compromises with touchy newspaper editors, his work as the president of the National Cartoonists Society, and his efforts to translate his comic strip into animated films. The chapter also presents an estimation of how the sum of his behind-the-scenes choices affected the quality and integrity of his work.

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